• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.63-66
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• 2005

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) process at room temperature has been newly proposed in recent years to overcome the shape accuracy and sticking problem induced in a conventional NIL process. Success of the room temperature NIL relies on the accurate understand of the mechanical behavior of the polymer. Since a conventional NIL process has to heat a polymer above the glass transition temperature to deform the physical shape of the polymer with a mold pattern, viscoelastic property of polymer have major effect on the NIL process. However, rate dependent behavior of polymer is important in the room temperature NIL process because a mold with engraved patterns is rapidly pressed onto a substrate coated with the polymer by the hydraulic equipment. In this paper, finite element analysis of the room temperature NIL process is performed with considering the strain rate dependent behavior of the polymer. The analyses with the variation of imprinting speed and imprinting pattern are carried out in order to investigate the effect of such process parameters on the room temperature NIL process. The analyses results show that the deformed shape and imprint force is quite different with the variation of punch speed because the dynamic behavior of the polymer is considered with the rate dependent plasticity model. The results provide a guideline for the determination of process conditions in the room temperature NIL process.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.7-15
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.332-336
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• 2007

Temperature is an essential process variable in nanoimprint lithography(NIL) where the temperature varies between room temperature and above the glass transition temperature. To simulate NIL process, we employ both the Nose-Poincare method for temperature controlled molecular dynamics(MD) and force field for polymer material i.e. polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA), which is most widely selected as NIL resist. Nose-Poincare method, which convinces the conservation of Hamiltonian structure and time-reversal symmetry, overcomes the drawbacks inherent in the conventional methods such as Nose thermostat and Nose-Hoover thermostat. Thus, this method exhibits enhanced numerical stability even when the temperature fluctuation is large. To describe PMMA, we adopt the force field which account for bond stretch, bending, torsion, inversion, partial charge, and van der Waals energy.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.604-610
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• 2004

Ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) is a promising method for cost-effectively defining nanoscale structures at room temperature and low pressure. Since the resolution of transferred nanostructures depends strongly upon that of nanostamps, the nanostamp fabrication technology is a key technology to UV-NIL. In this paper, a $5\times5\times0.09$ in. quartz stamp whose critical dimension is 377 nm was fabricated using the etching process in which a Cr film was employed as a hard mask for transferring nanostructures onto the quartz plate. To effectively apply the fabricated 5-in. stamp to UV-NIL on a 4-in. Si wafer, we have proposed a new UV-NIL process using a multi-dispensing method as a way to supply resist on a wafer. Experiments have shown that the multi-dispensing method can enable UV-NIL using a large-area stamp.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.199-202
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• 2003

Ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) is a promising method for cost-effectively defining nanoscale structures at room temperature and low pressure. Since the resolution of nanostructures depends strongly upon that of nanostamps, the nanostamp fabrication technology is a key technology to UV-NIL. In this paper, a 5$\times$5$\times$0.09 in. quartz stamp whose critical dimension is 377 nm was fabricated using the etch process in which a Cr film was employed as a hard mask for transferring nanostructures onto the quartz plate. To effectively apply tile fabricated 5-in. stamp to UV-NIL on a 4-in. Si wafer, we have proposed a new UV-NIL process using a multi-dispensing method as a way to supply resist on a wafer Experiments have shown that the multi-dispensing method can enable UV-NIL rising a large-area stamp.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.1069-1072
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• 2003

Ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) is a promising nanoimprint method for cost-effectively defining nanometer scale structures at room temperature and low pressure. Nanostamp fabrication technology is a key technology for UV-NIL because fabricating a high resolution nanostamp is the first step for defining high resolution nanostructures in a substrate. We used quartz as an UV transparent stamp material for the UVNIL. A $5{\times}5{\times}0.09$ inch stamp was fabricated using the quartz etch process in which Cr film was used as a hard mask for transferring nanostructures into the quartz. In this paper, we describe the quartz etching process and discuss the results including SEM images.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.76-81
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• 2008

Nanoimprint lithography(NIL) is an emerging technology enabling cost-effective and high-throughput nanofabrication. Among NILs, significant efforts from both academia and industry have been put in UV NIL research and development because of its ability to pattern at room temperature and at low pressure. In UV NIL, there may be in-line set-up error of the stamp and the substrate. To compensate this error, the dummy blocks are put on the stamp and pressurized uniformly. Contact problems between the stamp and the photoresist layer on the substrate are often happened, which results in the non-uniform residual layer In this paper, the pressurization method on the dummy block is investigated by the finite element method. A new method is recommended and evaluated far the uniform stamp deformation.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.65-70
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• 2023

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) has attracted much attention due to its process simplicity, excellent patternability, process scalability, high productivity, and low processing cost for pattern formation. However, the pattern size that can be implemented on metal materials through conventional NIL technologies is generally limited to the micro level. Here, we introduce a novel hard imprint lithography method, extreme-pressure imprint lithography (EPIL), for the direct nano-to-microscale pattern formation on the surfaces of metal substrates with various thicknesses. The EPIL process allows reliable nanoscopic patterning on diverse surfaces, such as polymers, metals, and ceramics, without the use of ultraviolet (UV) light, laser, imprint resist, or electrical pulse. Micro/nano molds fabricated by laser micromachining and conventional photolithography are utilized for the nanopatterning of Al substrates through precise plastic deformation by applying high load or pressure at room temperature. We demonstrate micro/nanoscale pattern formation on the Al substrates with various thicknesses from 20 ㎛ to 100 mm. Moreover, we also show how to obtain controllable pattern structures on the surface of metallic materials via the versatile EPIL technique. We expect that this imprint lithography-based new approach will be applied to other emerging nanofabrication methods for various device applications with complex geometries on the surface of metallic materials.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.433-437
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• 2007

A constant desire has been to fabricate nanopatterns for biochip and the Ultraviolet-nano imprint lithography (UV-NIL) is promising technology especially compared with thermal type in view of cost effectiveness. By using this method, nano-scale to micro-scale structures also called nanopore structures can be fabricated on large scale gold plate at normal conditions such as room temperature or low pressure which is not possible in thermal type lithography. One of the most important methods in fabricating biochips, immobilizing, was processed successfully by using this technology. That means immobilizing proteins only on the nanopore structures based on gold, not on hardened resin by UV is now possible by utilizing this method. So this selective nano-patterning process of protein can be useful method fabricating nanoscale protein chip.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.268-273
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• 2009

Ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL), which is performed at a low pressure and at room temperature, is known as a low cost method for the fabrication of nano-scale patterns. In the patterning process, maintaining the uniformity of the residual layer is critical as the pattern transfer of features to the substrate must include the timed etch of the residual layer prior to the etching of the transfer layer. In pursuit of a thin and uniform residual layer thickness, the initial volume and the position of each droplet both need to be optimized. However, the monomer mixtures of resin had a tendency to evaporate. The evaporation rate depends on not only time, but also the initial volume of the monomer droplet. In order to decide the initial volume of each droplet, the accurate prediction of evaporation behavior is required. In this study, the theoretical model of the evaporation behavior of resin droplets was developed and compared with the available experimental data in the literature. It is confirmed that the evaporation rate of a droplet is not proportional to the area of its free surface, but to the length of its contact line. Finally, the parameter of the developed theoretical model was calculated by curve fitting to decide the initial volume of resin droplets.